


If you ever loved somebody

by alittlenutjob



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 20:19:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4638858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlenutjob/pseuds/alittlenutjob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post 'Diary of a Mad Indian Woman.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	If you ever loved somebody

“Okay, I love you, but you've got to take a shower. You are so sweaty.” Mindy's propped up on her elbows. She hadn't quite ceded the right side of the bed, but she'd made enough room for him to sit on the edge. It reminds him uncomfortably of the last time he'd sat on the edge of her bed. He knows he needs to say some things to her, needs to admit some things, but they won't come out.

“Oh. Yeah, sorry.” She's making a face at the sweat stains on his shirt and he's suddenly acutely aware of quite how musky he'd gotten on his impromptu run to her place. “I don't have any clean clothes here though.”

She frowns. “You knew you were coming over and you didn't bring a change of clothes?”

“I... I guess I didn't.” He's caught off guard, but for once in his life he has a response ready. “It kinda didn't sound like you wanted me here that bad.”

Mindy sits all the way up and swings her legs over the edge of the bed, sitting next to him so she can nudge him with a shoulder. “Of course I want you to spend the night. I just didn't want to put any pressure on you.”

“Oh.”

Of course not. Why would he think she was putting pressure on him? He feels like an asshole. “Sorry I said that thing about pressure. That was weird. I guess I'm just tired too.”

“Well, go get a shower so we can go to bed.” She stands up, stepping over his feet so she's standing between them, a little too close. “Lucky for you I have a couple of pairs of boxers and a tee shirt that will fit you. Be forewarned, the shirt has PowerPuff Girls on it.”

“Power what? And why do you have boxers?”

“Relax. They're yours. Sometimes I sleep in them.”

Danny's brow wrinkles. “What? Why?”

“I don't know.” Her voice drops a little, like she's thinking as she's talking, a sort of rare approach for her in his experience. He doesn't have to look up to know the face that accompanies that soft reflective tone. He wants to take back every stupid thing he's done tonight. He knows she's had a bad day and he hasn't even asked her what had happened. She'd basically given him an out and then found him in her apartment anyway and he starts talking about pressure out of the blue. She probably thinks...he doesn't know what she thinks. She's running her fingers through his hair as she speaks and it pulls a little shiver out of him. “You know how I was telling everyone all our business because that way it would feel real? I guess it's the same thing. I know you don't like to stay over here, but I do and when I wake up alone in my own bed it helps me to remember that this wasn't just a dream.”

Danny Castellano's heart fails him for a moment. What can he say to that? She'd asked him if it was real before and he'd said yes and meant it at the time. But sitting here on the edge of her bed where he'd once told her that they didn't have what it takes for forever, he doesn't know if it's still true. Not the way she needs it to be. “Min, it's not a dream.”

“I know.” Mindy runs her fingertip along the shell of his ear affectionately. No harm, no foul, the touch says to him. “I used to dream about you a lot. Did I ever tell you that?”

“What kind of dreams?” Danny hopes that God doesn't strike him down right now. Deflection wasn't quite like a lie, but God doesn't care about that. Liars get what they deserve.

“Hot dreams. You'd lose your mind.”

He smiles up at her. “Yeah?”

“You can't even imagine. I couldn't even look at you at work.” She drops a kiss right on his temple and disappears into her closet, presumably to find some clothes for him.

The shame of what he's done creeps across his skin like frost. He'd not only invaded her privacy, but on top of it all he's lying to her about it now. He sneaks past her and into the bathroom to start the shower.

He folds his clothes as he strips, concentrating hard on anything he could say or do to fix this. She deserves to know that this might mean something different to her than it does to him. His mom was right when she said he needs to do the right thing or let her go. Maybe letting her go was the right thing. The creeping frost is reaching in now towards his heart and he steps into the shower under hot water. He realises as he leans under the spray that he's spent so little time here that he still hasn't learned how to adjust the taps. The water's too hot, but the cold is so deep in him now that he stands there watching as his skin turns bright pink under the stream and wondering if this should hurt more.

He hadn't shut the bathroom door because she just barges in if she wants to anyway, she always does. And that's exactly what happens this time. She drops clean socks, underwear and a pale green t-shirt with bug-eyed cartoon people on the edge of the sink and promptly avails herself of the toilet. The funny thing, he thinks, is how _normal_ this feels. She's always been balls-to-the-wall open with him about everything, and her peeing in the same room where he's showering doesn't even make him blink.

Maybe not open about _everything_ , he thinks guiltily as flashes of the things she'd written pass through his head.

He hears the toilet lid drop behind him, the signal that she's leaving but not flushing so it won't mess with the water temperature, and it occurs to him that Christina had never been this real with him. She'd shut and locked the door to brush her teeth. If she'd owned a nosehair trimmer he'd never seen it. If marriage was about a level of comfort with someone, he and Mindy were already married five times over. Why is he letting this scare him so much?

He works a dollop of something with a strawberry and what looked like a damn mandolin on the bottle into his hair. He'd found out the hard way that the weird little beads were full of oil so he just uses more of the shampoo as soap. He'll smell like a cupcake tomorrow, but the thought brings him a strange comfort, melting a little of the deep frost the hot water hadn't managed to touch. He turns the hot water knob a little, tucks his chin and ducks under the stream to rinse her candy pink nonsense out of his hair.

. . . .

“You took an awfully long time. You go for round two?” She smiles playfully and pushes her glasses up her nose.

It takes him a moment to follow her meaning, but luckily his skin is too flushed from the shower to give away the blush. He shakes his head. “Nah, I just couldn't find normal soap. I had to your your strawberry shampoo thing.”

“Danny, if I find strawberry scented pubes all over my shower I'm gonna be pissed.”

“See, this is why we should stay at my place!”

“Okay.” She looks at him strangely and he can feel her weighing up something in her head. “We'll stay at your place tomorrow.”

The little flash of defensiveness boils off in an instant and he's aware again of the coldness that chased him from the shower. He climbs under the covers, right side, and she turns toward him automatically, curling into him. “Danny you're shivering and you're boiling hot. Are you getting sick? I swear to God if you're getting sick...”

“I'm not.” He turns the lamp off and scoots further down. She plasters herself to his side and silence settles over them like a blanket. His skin prickles everywhere she touches. He knows it's in his head, but he can't decide if it's his body protecting him or if it's trying to protect her. The effect is the same either way, and in trying to focus on anything else his eyes land on the bedside table. What would she write about a night like tonight? _Dear Diary, I had a bad day at work and I asked Danny to bring me an ice cream cake. He showed up with pit_ _stains. He said he'd never marry me._

A wave of nausea seizes him and he swallows the burning. Why was this so much harder than real confession? She can't send him to Hell. “Min?”

“What, Danny? I'm tired.”

She could just let him go.

He shivers again. “Nevermind. Go to sleep.”

She sits up and turns the light on. “Spit it out, Danny. You've been weird since I got home.”

He turns and looks up. “I found your diary.” She's putting her glasses back on. Some days it feels like she's gotten more serious than she used to be. He wonders how much he's changed, and if it's changed her mind about him. Maybe she's outgrowing him, right before his eyes. “I mean, I wasn't snooping, your neck thing went off in your drawer.”

“My neck thing?”

“Your massager.”

Her eyebrows arch. “Wow, you really were snooping.”

“I wasn't." He pushes himself up to look at her. "Not at first.”

Mindy shrugs. “It's a vibrator.”

“What?”

“My neck thing. I'd be lying if I said I never used it on my neck, but that's not its main job. I can't believe you didn't know that.”

“Oh.” There it is again. Christina wouldn't have disclosed something like that. So secretive in fact that she'd failed to mention a lover she brought to their marital bed. He's reminded though, that he'd kept a secret or two from Christina and it dawns on him that what he did, taking the diary to Jeremy for repair was no better than Christina bringing his laptop to work. “I'm sorry. I didn't know. And I shouldn't have read it. I wish I hadn't.”

“Why? It's not like I really keep secrets.”

“I know, but I know what it's like when your privacy is invaded.”

“Danny I don't really do privacy. Half of that stuff is on the internet.”

“What?”

“Oh yeah. I've got hot stories. Why wouldn't I tell everyone? I'm basically Belle du Jour.”

“Huh?”

“She's... you know what, it's not important.”

Danny's face gets hot and he looks at his hands. “Morgan saw it too. And Jeremy.”

She shakes her head, incredulous. “Whoa, did you have a party or something?”

“No, Morgan came over to do turn down or whatever he does, and I spilled red wine on it, then we had Jeremy fix it after I messed it up.”

“Jesus, what do you guys get up to when I'm working my fingers to the bone trying to keep our practice open?”

“Hey, the practice is fine. We just did one stupid thing.”

“Whatever. I don't want to hear about how I don't pull my weight at the practice ever again though.” A sneaky smile steals across her lips. “And I want you to do all my paperwork for the week. No, the month.”

“No way.”

Her lip juts out in a pout. “But, Danny, my diary.”

“Fine. I should have known you'd turn this into a way to make me work harder.”

“Hey, snoopy, you brought this on yourself.”

He reaches over and brushes her bangs away from her brow. “I'm sorry.”

“I know. You're like the king of guilt.” She folds her glasses and puts them down next to Prince Frog before turning the light out. “I'll think of more ways to use it against you in the morning, but I've got to get some sleep.”

“Alright.” This time when he slides down next to her he reaches for her and draws her close.

She yawns right in his face and smiles sleepily in the half shadowed streetlight that streams through her window. “You find anything juicy? I mean, you already know a bunch of stuff about Tom -”

“That's enough. I don't wanna think about that.”

“Whatever, man,” she whispers into his shoulder. She's asleep in moments, and he waits in the dark for sleep to find him too. He says a silent prayer as he finally begins to nod, that one day he can share his secrets so easily.

And that she'll still be forgiving.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I started this months ago because I wanted some sort of resolution where Danny admitted the awful thing he'd done and there was a little closure. I don't know that this is the way of it though.  
> Music: Just a Dream, Nelly (hence the title


End file.
